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LinkOut: This app automates your LinkedIn networking

In March 2011, LinkedIn hit 100m users. And if you’re reading this, you’re no doubt one of them.

Whilst we’ve previously given you a guide to getting started with LinkedIn, we’ve just got wind of a new app that strives to help you get the most out of your LinkedIn contacts. I mean, let’s be honest, how often do you actually get out there and meet people you’re connected with on LinkedIn?

Launched last week, LinkOut is available as a native app for iOS and across multiple platforms as a Web app, and it promises to transform virtual networks into real-world meetings through its use of LinkedIn’s API. Users can register what their networking goals are and indicate when they’re available to make new connections, and then let the app automate the process thereafter.

LinkOut syncs with devices’ calendars to identify times when two compatible users are available to meet, and it even searches beyond your direct connections to facilitate introductions with new relevant people. You can choose how you’d like to network too, be it over a coffee, lunch/dinner, a telephone call or something else and, as with any modern mobile app, GPS is a key feature, ensuring you can see how close someone is to you:

The app does have a lot of potential but, of course, as with many initiatives similar to this, it does depend on who else is using LinkOut. Of my 120 LinkedIn contacts only two have signed up to LinkOut, and for the remaining contacts there’s an invite option:

“As tech entrepreneurs ourselves, we know how difficult it is to make a meaningful connection with other entrepreneurs, mentors and investors in the London tech community,” said LinkOut co-founder Avi Patchava. “LinkOut was built to address this problem. In time, it will hopefully facilitate hundreds of new introductions and productive meetings across other sectors, in London and other cities.”

Earlier this year, Patchava and two co-founders launched another social meet-up app called Kliqed, which won a number of awards earlier this year, including the London School of Economics Annual startup and Incubator competitions, as well as This Week in Startups (London).